Never in his career has McCartney seemed more serious in tone and more aware of the play of his lyrics as poetry.

At 14 tracks long, Orton could have trimmed three or four cuts and left a near-flawless, efficient package that was all killer and no filler. As it stands, it is merely excellent.

The handful of slower songs drag more than they have a right to, and fail to hint at any depth or versatility that’s missing from the straight-ahead rockers.

The disc succeeds by merging a unity of sounds with a complex variety of emotions.

As sumptuous and sublime as much of Hypnotic Underworld is, Ghost tend to noodle too long.

Sleep and Release is both an exceptional release and an unfortunate release, and even when it’s at its best and at its worst, it remains both of these- its emotional and musical scope help the album succeed and cause it to fail.

As accomplished as Radian's sound is, Juxtaposition has trouble conveying new ideas throughout the album.

In the end, we can’t ignore that The Hives’ best moments are those borrowed (or just plain pilfered) from punk acts that preceded them.

Brock’s idiosyncratic worldview, so much a part of what made Modest Mouse special to begin with, has left the building.

A Healthy Distrust’s production and wordplay have improved to such a large degree that it’s hard to believe that it could happen again on the next outing.

Springtime is... the unveiling of a toothier sound that better reflects both Holland’s bloodiness and booziness.

Smith’s abrupt changes in tempo, volume, and instrumentation are alternately inspiring and disorienting.

iT is the most focused art the Projectors have ever produced.

While their recorded output has still not quite caught up to their prowess as a live band, that moment is likely right around the corner; in the meantime, this album is more than good enough to make that wait worthwhile.

There are subtle shifts at work with the band, and most allow their shady songcraft to emerge from overt experimentalism--perhaps too aware of its own inventiveness--into the realms of "art-pop."

Soul Journey might sound downbeat and lonesome, wistful and dusty, but this is gospel music compared to what went before.

One long sugar rush.

It’s obvious that the group can write straight-ahead rock/pop songs, but only chooses to tease the listener with short glimpses of their ability in this regard.

His new album isn’t quite as good as Disposable Arts, but it’s similarly engaging--he is both confident and insecure, and this incongruity defines his music.

Most of the tracks here fit into various categories of coffee table mood music; Lerche has a great knack for melodies, but seemingly not much of an idea what to do with them once he’s got them all lined up.

The production's sanitary feel plays a large role in the album's conservative nature, as it scrubs away any potential raucousness.

A Blessing and a Curse easily qualifies as the Truckers’ most straightforward album.

A remarkably notable debut.

There's a sustained tone to Time on Earth that Finn's rarely mastered, and that alone comes closer than you might have thought possible to making the record an unqualified success.

Is Is is over in eighteen minutes, not one is wasted.

The tenderfooted wandering of the We Are Him’s final third make it less compelling than its flagellating first half but have patience; Gira always gets there.

While it could be asserted that More Fish is leftovers to Fishscale's ten-course spread, we're still talking about something well beyond your average table scraps.

Love Kraft is taken down by sludgy pacing and a paucity of ideas.

There are few of the stop-in-your-tracks lines or extended metaphors of previous works.

Few albums made in recent memory sound this harrowing or this painful, yet even fewer have such a true sense of catharsis.

I wouldn't want to call it a "return to form" because Lil' Beethoven was actually pretty good, but it certainly perfects that album's aesthetic and infuses it with some of the giddy energy of the earlier Sparks stuff.

The songs... are as wonderful, as creative, as exquisitely saddening as ever.

Trying too hard to mimic his band’s tried-and-true telepathy with only karaoke-level results, it's easy to see he thinks he’s run out of ways to experiment.

What Hey Venus! ultimately is, is a good record of classy pop/rock songs, arranged and produced well, shot through with a degree of personality and skill, and almost completely lacking in the inspired, eclectic madness which made "Radiator and Guerilla" so damn good.

Idols is not quite “country” enough to tackle the road to the prairies, but the headspace of the album is clearly in a place with plenty of room to breathe.

Even on the tracks with mediocre melodies and concepts, T.I. plugs away at the beat and never loses control of King.

Valende is really a more significant album than a lot of people seem to be giving it credit for being, and one hopes that it will be remembered as such.

These are songs that veer to and fro, frequently sounding as if they’re nearly about to run off the rails.

Despite the ubiquitous lackluster second half, and some weak tracks scattered throughout, the opening triple-threat supersedes them.

The four new Magnetic Fields tracks, while good, add little more to Merritt’s considerable repertoire than a few catchy melodies, with scarcely a clever line to boast.

It may not be the psychedelic mind-warps that the Chemicals usually offer up, but it is an excellent debut and delivers the tunes we were hoping for earlier in 2002.

From Every Sphere is frequently let down by Harcourt’s mediocre songwriting.

The Unicorns’ schtick isn’t very difficult to see through; they’re grown adults writing children’s songs for grown adults.

An interesting, good album: more inventive, heavy, meaningful, and memorable than the Veils’ first.

The Maginot Line has a title almost as dreary and foreboding as The North Sea had, a sense of vast futility and inescapable fate, and like that first album, the title belies the often bright and sparkling parts of the music.

The difference... between For the Season and Gris Gris’s debut album is that the detours are less frequent and less distracting.

Once you vacuum out the fluff there’s barely half an album left.

Being Ridden is not a great album, because these kinds rarely are. Kidwell’s vision is born of confusion and disarray, so it’s only natural that his art would follow suit.

Sonic Nurse, if not proof of a band bursting with fresh ideas, is at least fresh-sounding.

No longer does he sound on the verge of breakdown with every aching syllable, no more pent-up jadedness---this is pure, cheerful post-orgasmic clarity.

As with much of her past work, it’s almost embarrassingly human, sometimes sounding too close to you to believe it’s not your own.

Where the debut sounded like a drunken nihilist romp, Castle sounds like an artistic presentation of a drunken nihilist romp.

Review 1: <A HREF="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=1418" TARGET="_blank">This is what they do- they don’t ape other bands. They ape pop music. And they do it better than any other band right now.</A> [score=80]; Review 2: <A HREF="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=1419" TARGET="_blank">33 minutes and 34 seconds of the SAME album!</A> [score=65]

While the record is surely Tweedy&#146;s most experimental to date, it&#146;s also, amazingly enough, his most lighthearted. In the end, this is both the gift and curse of Loose Fur, in band and album form.

Califone has worked, skillfully, with all of these styles and sounds before, but they’ve never left the table with a more realized, delicate treatment.

This is a lovingly crafted compilation that not only represents the raw live power of PJ Harvey but also tips a cap to John Peel and the raw power his sessions had on performers.

Idealism has some fun with memorable new electro (“The Pulse,” “Home Zone,” “Idealistic”) and nu-rave cuts (“I Want I Want,” “Pogo”). But these guys can’t possibly think fans will believe this fifteen-track behemoth, mostly lacking in subtlety and invention, is the big party they half-seriously claim it to be, over and over and over again.

Cryptograms is by no means a flawless record, but taking the time to speak its language, tap into the dueling forces that make it tick, is an intriguing reward.

The Furnaces&#146; brand of sonic mayhem may not be for everyone, but there are rewards for those who dare take the plunge.

A boringly functional record full of tediously average songwriting.

Everything Ecstatic provides an enjoyable listen, but it also sounds as much like a groping as a declaration.

The finest Matmos record to date.

An underdeveloped and frail album.

Parades, both restrained and wildly dramatic, gently touching and warmly enveloping, is not a record that sits comfortably with convenient labels.

Ex Hex does have some problems, but they are minor in comparison to the thrill of hearing Timony rock out again.

The music from the Envelopes’ first LP, Demon, is so loose and frivolous it feels like the Swedish group wasn’t even aware that the mics were hot.

You almost get the sense Leo must be embarrassed by how good his last record sounds, opting instead to appease some imaginary punk ethic to the detriment of his songs.

A showcase of a band who have learned lessons and improved upon them, quietly getting better and better until something really special emerges.

For a band who has struggled to make themselves heard and understood, God Save the Clientele may just be the Clientele casting some burdens to the wind, channeling all their adoration for Love and the Television Personalities with clear eyes, clear minds, and louder voices than they ever have before.

Proof of Youth is a satisfying sophomore effort.

Summer Sun, while constantly very good, is never creative, inspiring or great. [Editor's Note: Score listed is an average of three separate reviews/scores by this publication: 56, 60, 68]

The disappointments just keep on coming.

Like a leather whip encased in a spun sugar cage, it is simultaneously deeply sexy yet innocent. And it&#146;s that push-pull tension that keeps this album yanked together tighter than a PVC miniskirt.

In The Reins is intelligent but natural, different but not queer.

The result may be, in a manner of speaking, the most consistent Atmosphere album to date. That is, You Can’t Imagine is consistently okay.

Natural is their prettiest album; in spots it's almost pastoral.

For an album about all the bad things that can happen to us, it sounds pretty damn good.

This new sense of excursion comes with its costs, and like many of their predecessors, it robs this Toronto band’s tunefulness in the name of unnecessary experimentation.

The album certainly holds enough strong melodies and well-written songs to elevate it above the majority of Harrison&#146;s uneven solo career, but is somewhat brought down by Lynne&#146;s posthumous production.

Its unity keeps it solid, but it also keeps Dents and Shells free of surprises.

Tracyanne Campbell has a glassy, gorgeous voice, but it’s also a curiously inexpressive one. When she’s left to carry less than strong songs alone, they suffer as a result.

No period of Ferry's extraordinary career goes untouched on Frantic, easily his most rewarding solo work since Roxy's disbandment in 1983.

Shouldn't he be trying something a bit more ambitious by now?

Sullivan and Cox are attentive enough to make room for understated fiddler Claudia Mogel, who keeps the band’s country flame burning when they flail and strut. None of this, though, is enough to strip the album of a staleness and fatigue

The group's consistent artistic statement with little flexibility for change or innovation upon an already distinctive sound is their own greatest strength and enemy, leaving them unable to win over new listeners with a directional change.

The Eraser is a triumph.

There isn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that this collection plays it way too safe to satisfy the über-devoted.

Blemish is not sadness or happiness; it is strange observation and relapse.

The Heat compares favorably to PJ Harvey&#146;s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, offering the same NYCentric references (&#147;9-11 baby boom&#148;), gruff, understated guitar work and narrative aptitude. These are Malin&#146;s stories from the city and they don&#146;t disappoint.

Meaty and encompassing, Future Crayon rarely misses, even if it fails to measure up to the band’s sublime full-lengths.

The Breakthrough is easily Blige’s finest full-length since ‘99’s Mary.

There is a contingent of hip-hop fans who have been impatiently waiting at least since Madvillainy for a record rooted in tradition that offers something just a bit more skewed and challenging. Abandoned Language is that album.

Clor’s singer and main-man Barry Dobbin unfortunately posses the kind of high, straining voice that grates to the point of making you want to punch him on the nose, and when combined with the incessant business of the band’s undoubtedly clever and accomplished music it makes this eponymous debut feel like an effort to listen to.

Where Jurado differs from someone like Jason Molina is in the vibrancy of the actual music.

Yes, it’s a concept album, but it’s not crap. Actually, Scarlet’s Walk is very suitable for an artist with Amos’ capacity for spewing drama from her intense and highly articulated words.

The songs here are full of life, moving freely, focused without being bare and controlled without being uptight.

It quickly becomes apparent there is a lacking element in many of the tracks on the album. Memorable melodies. What remains are non-descript tracks that feature synthesizer melodies that go nowhere and cribbed samples from records.

Buckner’s interest here is in a wallowing mouthful of atmosphere—dominant drums, throbbing guitar, and a fair amount of piano. This has always been the case, but the compositions are seamlessly edited and cleanly brought from instrument to recording.